The present invention relates to control key devices, and more particularly to a control key device which may be used as an input device for specifying a moving direction of a displayed character or the like on a video game apparatus or a portable electronic game apparatus.
In such a control key device, an appropriate operating force is applied by an operator to a contact member thereof. Then, the contact member is thus transformed. The transformation of the contact member results in some contacts coming in contact with each other. Some kind of control key devices further have the following functions. One of such kind of control key devices has a plurality of pairs of contacts. Electrical contact is established in a desired pair of contacts from among the plurality of pairs of contacts as a result of an appropriate operating force being applied by an operator. Further, the establishment of electrical contact in a desired pair of contacts from among the plurality of pairs may indicate a desired direction of a plurality of directions. The desired direction corresponds to the pair of contacts in which the electrical contact is established. The plurality of directions may be assigned by the plurality of pairs of contacts. Thus, the operator may specify or select a desired direction from among a plurality of directions using the above kind of control key device by appropriately operating them. This appropriate operation of the control key device is executed by movement of a finger of the operator, which finger touches the key of the control key device.
In the known art, such kind of control key device is used in computers, for example, video game apparatus including video game apparatus of business use or video game apparatus of personal use. In these video game apparatus, a display screen such as using a liquid crystal display device is provided. In this display screen, a character is moved in response to an operation performed on the video game apparatus by an operator. The character is an object representing in the display screen. The operator may specify the movement of the character using the control key device mentioned above. Using the control key device, the operator may specify or may select a direction in which the character moves. The direction selected is selected from various directions, for example, 4 directions, the top, bottom, right and left, or 8 directions, the top, bottom, right, left, top left, top right, bottom left, and bottom right.
The Japanese Utility-Model Publication No. 3-50594 (Japanese Utility-Model Application No. 61-58549) discloses such a conventional control key device. The disclosed control key device is such as shown in FIG. 1. In FIG. 1, a sectional view is shown.
In FIG. 1, the control key device is operated as follows. The operator may push the control key device on a pad 110. Pushing of the center of the pad 110 downward in FIG. 1 causes the supporting-point member 113 to move downward. A supporting member 122 is elastically transformed as a result of the pad 110 being pushed downward as mentioned above. This elastic transformation of the supporting member 122 results in the downward motion of the supporting-point member 113. This downward motion of the supporting-point member 113 results in it touching a substrate 140. Thus, the supporting member 113 will then act as a supporting point with respect to a motion of the pad 110.
This control key device has a construction such that the following state is established. Even the pad 110 has been moved downward as mentioned above, none of the conductive rubber plates 130a and 130b comes in contact with any of electrical contact portions 141 and 142. The conductive rubber plates 130a and 130b are fixed on a supporting member 133. The electrical contact portions are provided on the substrate 140.
Then, the operator may push the projection 111a as well as pushing the center of the pad 110 as mentioned above. Then, the operator pushes the projection 111a as mentioned above, a disk 112 as well as the pad 110 accordingly tilts with respect to the substrate 140. This tilting is executed with respect to the supporting point formed by the supporting-point member 113. As a result, the tilting of the disk 112 results in the conductive rubber plate 130a touching the electrical contact portion 141. This results in a pair of contacts constituting the electrical contact portion 141 electrically coming in contact with each other. That is, electrical contact is established in the electrical contact portion 141. This electrical contact results in a predetermined electrical circuit, not shown, being closed.
A drawback involved in such a conventional control key device as shown in FIG. 1 will now be described. In the control key device, the supporting-point member 113 is rigidly fixed on the pad 110. The supporting-point member 113 is used for forming the supporting point as mentioned above. Some force may be applied to the pad 110. Then, this force is transmitted to the substrate 140 via the supporting-point member 113. Thus, so a strong force may be applied to the pad as to damage wirings themselves or wiring connections formed on the substrate 140.